European Union anti-corruption officials defended their actions that saw Belgian police raid the home of a journalist, shrugging off a European Court of Human Rights decision criticising the handling of the case.

The case is considered a test of the rights of reporters to keep sources confidential and has prompted strongly worded statements from international journalists groups.

OLAF, the European Anti-fraud Office, asked Belgian and German authorities in 2004 to investigate whether a journalist paid a bribe to get confidential OLAF documents.

Two OLAF spokesmen defended their agency today, saying it would do the same again in the same circumstances. OLAF had no responsibility for Belgium's actions because it merely referred the case to national authorities, they said.

"We don't have a choice if there is information of a crime," said OLAF spokesman Alessandro Buttice.

Belgian police, acting on OLAF's information, raided the Brussels home of German journalist Hans Martin Tillack in March 2004.

The European Court of Human Rights, in Strasbourg, France, on Tuesday fined Belgium 10,000 euros for violating Mr Tillack's rights and 30,000 euros for costs.

Belgium was trying to determine whether German magazine Stern, which employed Mr Tillack, paid an OLAF official to get information for a story about EU financial irregularities.

OLAF officials said today they gave Belgium "facts liable to result in criminal proceedings" and that Belgium had chosen to act on them. But the court said the information OLAF gave to Belgium was no more than vague, unsubstantiated rumours.

OLAF got its information from a European Commission official who said he had been told second-hand of the alleged bribe and was unsure whether it was 8,000 Deutsche Marks or 8,000 euros, a detail which troubled the court in its ruling this week.

The OLAF spokesmen noted that in October 2006 the second-highest European Union court, based in Luxembourg, dismissed legal proceedings by Mr Tillack against OLAF.

The Strasbourg finding affected only Belgium and did not relate to OLAF, they said.